Eric is a predictive analytics and business planning innovator, author, teacher and speaker. As Director of Thought Leadership at IBF, he brings over 20 years of experience, previously leading demand planning at Escalade Sports, Berry Plastics, and Tempur Sealy. Eric is an IBF Advanced Certified Professional Forecaster (ACPF) and received IBF’s Excellence in Business Forecasting & Planning award in 2016. He is a frequent speaker and panelist who has published extensively in The Journal of Business Forecasting and APICS Magazine. Eric is also the author of Cultural Cycles, Predictive Analytics for Business Forecasting & Planning, and Practical Guide to Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP/ IBP).
How does the wider economy impact your demand? What about competitor activity and weather? In this value-added town hall, we dive into the role of macroeconomic and other external variables in forecasting, and how to include these demand drivers into your process. Leading experts will reveal their best practices with takeaways for your own planning process.
- Incorporating external drivers into your forecasts and plans
- Identifying which economic and industry drivers impact your business
- Looking beyond sales and times series data to find new insights
- How machine learning, intelligent forecasting and other technologies are changing demand forecasting
- Which industries are benefiting most from predictive analytics
- How to use predictive analytics to improve forecasting and become more agile
- Whether you need to be a data scientist to leverage predictive analytics, and if it is a good use of a planner’s time